How to upload photos from Android Phone to Google Drive?

Uploading photos from your Android phone to Google Drive is a great way to keep your images safe and accessible across all your devices. Google Drive offers free, unlimited photo storage for high quality images up to 16MP and videos up to 1080p resolution.

In this comprehensive guide, we will walk through all the steps and methods to easily upload photos from an Android phone to Google Drive.

Prerequisites

Before you can upload photos to Google Drive, you need:

• An Android phone running Android 5.0 or later
• The latest version of the Google Drive app installed on your Android phone
• A Google account
• An active internet connection on your phone

Outline of Main Steps

Here is a quick outline of the main steps we will cover in this guide:

• Open the Google Drive app on your Android phone

  

• Create a new folder in Drive for your photos
• Select photos to upload
• Upload photos to the folder
• Set Google Drive to auto-upload photos
• Upload from the Google Photos app
• Share albums or photos stored in Drive
• Backup phone photos to Drive on computer
• FAQs and tips

Now let's dive into each step in more detail.

Open the Google Drive app on your Android phone

The first step is to open the Google Drive app on your Android device:

1. Locate and tap on the Google Drive app icon on your apps menu or home screen.
2. Sign in to your Google account if prompted.
3. You will see the main Drive screen with options like "My Drive" and "Shared with me".

Create a new folder in Drive for your photos

It's good practice to keep your photos organized in specific folders in Google Drive. Here's how to create a new folder:

1. Tap on the "+" (Add) button at the bottom right and select Folder.
2. Give the folder a name like "My Photos". You can create folders within folders if desired.
3. Tap "Add" to create the folder.

Select photos to upload

Now it's time to select the specific photos on your Android phone that you want to upload:

1. Tap on the "Add" button again and select "Upload photos".
2. Tap on "Select from library" to view all photos on your device.
3. Tap to select the photos you want to upload. Selected photos will have a blue tick icon.
4. Once done, tap on the "Upload" button at the top.

Upload photos to the folder

After selecting the photos, you can choose which folder in Drive to upload them to:

1. On the upload screen, tap on the folder icon at the top next to "My Drive".
2. Select the folder you created earlier for your photos.
3. Tap "Upload" to start uploading the photos to this folder.
4. The app will show upload progress for each photo.

That's it! The selected photos will now be uploaded from your Android phone's storage to the Google Drive folder.

Set Google Drive to auto-upload photos

Manually uploading photos each time can be tedious. Fortunately, you can set Google Drive to automatically upload photos:

1. Open the Drive app Settings.
2. Tap on "Photo sync".
3. Enable "Upload newly added photos".
4. You can also choose options like only uploading over Wi-Fi, original quality vs storage saver, etc.
5. Tap "Turn On" to enable auto-upload.

Now Google Drive will automatically upload any new photos from your camera to the app whenever you are connected to the internet.

Upload from the Google Photos app

Google Photos is another app you can use to upload photos and videos to Drive:

1. Open the Google Photos app on your Android device.
2. Tap and hold on a photo to select it. Choose multiple photos if desired.
3. Tap the three dot menu button in the top right.
4. Choose "Save to Drive" from the menu.
5. Select the folder in Drive or create a new one to save to.
6. Tap "Save" and the photos will be uploaded to Drive.

Any albums or photos backed up to Google Photos can be easily accessed from Google Drive this way.

Quick Tip to ensure your videos never go missing

Videos are precious memories and all of us never want to ever lose them to hard disk crashes or missing drives. PicBackMan is the easiest and simplest way to keep your videos safely backed up in one or more online accounts. 

Simply Download PicBackMan (it's free!), register your account, connect to your online store and tell PicBackMan where your videos are - PicBackMan does the rest, automatically. It bulk uploads all videos and keeps looking for new ones and uploads those too. You don't have to ever touch it.

Share albums or photos stored in Drive

Once your photos are saved in Google Drive, you can easily share albums or specific photos:

1. Open the Google Drive app.
2. Locate the folder containing the photos.
3. Tap and hold on the folder or individual photos to select them.
4. Tap the Share button in the top right.
5. Enter email addresses to share the Drive folder link. Or tap "Copy link" to share a direct public photo link.
6. Choose permissions and settings, then tap "Send" or "Copy" to share.

Recipients will be able to view, download or collaborate on the shared albums or photos.

Backup phone photos to Drive on computer

You can also backup all photos stored on your Android phone to Google Drive using your computer:

1. Connect your phone to the computer using a USB cable.
2. Open the Phone's storage on the computer once detected.
3. Select all the photo folders or albums you want to backup.
4. Drag and drop the photo folders to Google Drive on your computer.
5. The computer will now upload all photos to Drive.

This allows you to bulk upload all camera photos to Drive in one go for backup.

Conclusion

Uploading all your important photos to Google Drive is a great way to keep them safe and accessible across devices. By following this guide, you should now be able to swiftly transfer photos from your Android phone to Google Drive using the Drive app, Google Photos, auto-upload, or even your computer. Keep your photo collection secure and organized with Google Drive. Let us know if you have any other questions!

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some common questions about uploading Android photos to Google Drive:

How do I upload screenshots to Drive?

To upload a screenshot, open the Google Drive app and tap the "+" button > Upload > Screenshots. Select the desired screenshots on your phone and upload them to Drive.

Does Google Drive compress image quality?

Google Drive does not compress or resize photos and videos uploaded in High quality, which is up to 16MP for images and 1080p for video. Storage saver quality has slight compression but files don't count against your storage limit.

Can I upload photos without internet?

No, an active internet connection is required to upload photos from your Android phone to Google Drive. You can select the 'Original' upload quality option to preserve full image quality.

How can I view my Google Drive photos on other devices?

Photos uploaded to Drive are accessible from drive.google.com on any web browser. The Drive mobile app is also available for iOS and other platforms to access your photos everywhere.

What is the best way to organize photos on Drive?

Create a folder structure with separate folders for each year/event/album. Add photos directly to the relevant folders for easy organization. Use image descriptions and search to find photos quickly.